Republican Sens. Jim Banks of Indiana and Tom Cotton of Arkansas will introduce legislation Wednesday to stand up for parents fighting against left-wing gender ideology.
The act, titled the “Guaranteeing Unalienable and Anatomical Rights for Dependents” (GUARD) Act, would disqualify states from some federal funds if it discriminates against parents or guardians by forcing them to recognize a child’s professed gender identity that is different from his or her biological sex.
State governments would also be ineligible for Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) funds if its child protective services take adverse actions against parents or guardians in custody disputes for opposing “medical, surgical, pharmacological, psychological treatment” related to affirming a child’s imagined gender identity, according to bill text shared exclusively with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
States across the country have removed children from parents’ custody who refuse to recognize their child’s professed gender identity, as previously reported by DCNF.
“Parents who wish to raise their children according to their biological sex should be able to do so without fearing that they will be taken away,” a release providing background on the bill and shared with the DCNF states.
President Donald Trump called on Congress to pass legislation criminalizing child sex changes during his joint address to Congress Tuesday evening.
“Our message to every child in America is that you are perfect exactly the way God made you,” Trump said during his address.
Roughly 14,000 children in the United States received sex change-related treatments and nearly 6,000 underwent sex change surgeries between 2019 to 2023, according to the DCNF’s prior reporting citing Do No Harm’s database.
The Biden administration notably finalized a regulation requiring child welfare agencies to be LGBTQ affirming in April 2024.
“The government has no business punishing parents for protecting their kids from radical gender ideology,” Banks told the DCNF. “My bill ensures that states respecting parental rights aren’t strong-armed into embracing dangerous social experiments.”
“If you don’t let your kid ‘transition’ to the opposite sex, certain state governments will help remove them from your custody,” Cotton told the DCNF. “It sounds like dystopian science fiction, but it’s happening in the United States of America. Our bill would take funding away from states that abuse their power by taking away parents’ rights simply for opposing radical gender experiments.”
Republican Wyoming Rep. Harriet Hageman, chairwoman of the Anti-Woke Caucus, is the lead sponsor of the House companion bill.
“The GUARD Act will cut off CAPTA funds from states that discriminate against parents who reject the gender-confusion nonsense school officials shove on their kids,” Hageman told the DCNF. “Families shouldn’t fear their children being taken from their homes because they won’t buy into the wild ideas of a few radicals in public schools. I’m proud to join Senator Banks in leading this important legislation.”
Cotton, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri introduced the GUARD Act during the 118th Congress in July 2023, but the bill was never taken up by the formerly Democratic-controlled Senate.
The bill is endorsed by the American Principles Project, the Family Policy Alliance and Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee.
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